Murkowski Fights Health Care Bill’s Potential Security Breaches

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Lisa Murkowski today joined 25 of her Senate colleagues to co-sponsor the Trust But Verify Act, to ensure that personal and private information divulged under the Affordable Care Act – such as Social Security numbers and household incomes – are fully protected from breaches and glitches on data networks before millions of Americans are compelled to disclose personal information on unproven networks.

“The NSA, FBI and IRS have demonstrated a startling inability to protect Americans’ personal records, and now the government is again telling us to hand over information that most Americans are understandably reluctant to share – without having fully vetted its information security,” said Murkowski. “The Obama Administration has already postponed two pieces of his unpopular healthcare law due to inefficiencies and lack of preparedness, I don’t believe that we should ask Americans to provide information to exchanges when we don’t know our information is safe from hackers, other cyberthreats and even our own government!”

On October 1st of this year, exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act are scheduled to open for the millions of Americans being forced to buy health coverage in the new online marketplace – without having been inspected and tested by independent observers. The Trust But Verify Act will delay health insurance exchanges from opening until a full review of the security is complete.

BACKGROUNDER: Senator Murkowski has opposed and continues to oppose the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and believes the law should be repealed and replaced – repeatedly calling for the bill’s repeal or permanent delay. On March 13, she voted for an amendment offered by Senator Cruz to prohibit the use of funds to implement the ACA, and on March 22, she voted for an amendment offered by Senator Cruz to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she has also voted repeatedly against funding the Affordable Care Act and to prohibit implementation of the employer mandate and individual mandate.